No major breakthroughs are likely to be made at this week's meeting of climate change negotiators in Bonn, in the latest round of UN talks before the next major annual summit in Durban, in December. However, this meeting has assumed heightened significance in the light of the record rise in carbon dioxide emissions globally for 2010 (30.6 gigatonnes), recently announced by the International Energy Agency – data that comes despite the most serious global recession for at least a generation, and has increased doubt that so-called dangerous global warming (temperature rises of more than 2C) can be prevented. Is all now lost?

A new study by Global Legislators' Organisation for a Balanced Environment (Globe) and the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics suggests that there is still room for optimism. The report shows that the massive attention devoted to the UN process, vital as that framework is, has diverted focus from national capitals, where significant domestic global-warming legislation is advancing.

The research (which focused on 15 key developed and developing countries, and the EU) indicates that the positive picture on domestic legislation coincides with a fundamental shift in attitudes. There is a growing realisation that action on climate change is in the national interest, and this moves the debate on significantly: previously discussions were largely about sharing a global burden – with governments, naturally, trying to minimise their share.

There is increasing recognition of the significant co-benefits of climate change legislation – strengthening energy security, increasing resource-efficiency, improving air quality and securing a competitive advantage in new markets for clean and low-carbon technologies, goods and services. Indeed, those countries with strong national legislation are, perhaps not surprisingly, attracting the most inward investment on low-carbon technologies because there is business certainty (rather than high regulatory risk) for such investments.

This development is crucial because a comprehensive international climate change agreement – as opposed to the incremental one agreed at Cancun – will probably be possible only when a critical mass of countries is committed, because of self-interest rather than perceived altruism, to taking sufficient action. In other words, such an agreement will only reflect political conditions, not define them.

To be sure, the climate change policy picture is not uniformly positive across the 15 countries. One reversal, for instance, was the withdrawal of the US federal climate-change bill from Congress last summer.

Even when reversals occur, however, countervailing forces are sometimes at work. In the United States, the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included about $80bn for clean-energy research, development and deployment, and some $16.8bn for energy-efficiency and renewable-energy programmes.

Progress is being achieved at different speeds in different countries, partly because climate change doesn't affect the world uniformly, and because the incentives are different for each country.

Several large developing countries are moving towards comprehensive climate change legislation. China has just released its 12th five-year plan, including significant targets for reducing the carbon intensity of its economy by 40-45%, from 2005 levels, by 2020, and is developing a comprehensive national climate-change law.

India has set up an Expert Group on Low Carbon Strategy for Inclusive Growth, the recommendations of which will form a central theme in the 12th Five Year Plan in 2012.

Brazil already has a very low carbon energy matrix — it gains most of its energy from renewable sources, primarily hydropower for electricity and ethanol for vehicles and is focusing its legislation on deforestation — its major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

Mexico is examining all existing energy-related laws to establish what amendments need to be made to make them consistent with climate change goals, in addition to developing comprehensive climate change legislation.

South Africa has issued a White Paper on climate change with a view to passing a climate change law ahead of the Durban climate change conference later this year.

Encouraging as these developments are, they are not enough to avoid dangerous climate change, which many scientists believe will result from a 3C to 4C increase in global temperatures, a probable irreversible tipping point for continent-sized areas of changing land cover, and for ice on sea and land.

Although this is hugely disappointing on several levels, national legal and policy frameworks to measure, report, verify and manage carbon are being set up. These could be ratcheted up as governments experience the self-interested benefits of tackling climate change.

If this happens, the goal must be to translate such progress into a comprehensive international deal – the poorest countries in particular will need international assistance to help them to adapt to the impact of climate change.